


All That Goes Unspoken

by amnesiawife



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Non-graphic discussion of Rape/Non-con, See Notes for more details, Victim Blaming, everybody has trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:08:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28174428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amnesiawife/pseuds/amnesiawife
Summary: A case forces Sam to confront something long kept buried.(Set nebulously in season 12.)
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 10
Kudos: 60





	All That Goes Unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for Rape/Non-Con: There's nothing explicit in the fic and everything happens "off screen" before the fic starts, but the story deals heavily with emotional trauma, especially with regard to shame. Further details in the end notes.

[

On Tuesday, Sam receives a text from Alex. It says, “Meet for coffee? I need your help.”

It's strange enough that Sam doesn't respond the way he normally would - with immediate affirmation. Instead, he pauses over it, chewing on the inside of his mouth as he wipes the sweat of an afternoon run from his brow. It's not like Alex to ask them for help directly. Usually it's Jody reaching out, and Alex always seems vaguely reluctant to be involved - glad to see them, but displeased to be seen. The straightforward message is new.

Then there's the phrasing, the use of the singular pronoun. It's Alex who needs help specifically. The others aren't involved; this is personal. But it's also not urgent, or else there's some reason for hesitation, because she isn't sending a desperate S.O.S. as a last resort. She wants to meet for coffee. That's all.

It doesn't really add up. Sam likes it when things add up, so he pauses, thumb hovering over the keyboard in indecision.

“What's got your panties in a twist?” Dean asks, slouching into the kitchen toward the fridge. “Somebody die?”

Sam glances up at him and tries to smooth out his expression, which he's now aware must be doing something concerning. It's too late, though. Despite his casual tone, Dean's eyes are sharp. Ready for trouble.

Sam clears his throat.

“No,” he says. “I don't think so, at least. It's Alex. She says she needs help.”

“Well, alright then,” Dean says. “Let her know we're on our way.”

And he's right, of course. They are on their way. They always will be for those girls. 

Sam texts Alex, “We'll be there ASAP.” 

But the weird feeling in his gut doesn't quite go away. Belatedly, he adds, “Should we be prepared for trouble?”

“No more than the usual amount,” Alex responds a few minutes later.

Which isn't that comforting, all things considered.

][

They meet Alex that evening in a diner not far from the hospital where she works. True to her word, and despite the hour, she gets coffee.

“I've been working night shifts,” she explains, ripping open a packet of sugar.

“Sounds rough,” Dean says. He lifts his hands off the table so that the waitress can slide a stack of waffles and bacon onto the placemat in front of him. A sympathetic breakfast for dinner. “How you holding up?”

“Fine,” Alex says. “It's tiring, but I like the work. It makes me feel useful.”

“And how are the others?” Sam asks from over his club sandwich. “Jody and Claire?”

“Jody is fine,” Alex says. “Claire is...Claire.”

They nod in understanding and shared amusement. Claire barrels through life like a rocket, deadly and brilliant and terrifying. It's probably a waste of breath to ask her to be less dangerous. Better to just point her at a fight she stands a chance of winning, stand back, and pray.

“So about why I asked you here,” Alex says. “I have a case.”

“Yeah, we figured,” Dean says. “You know we're happy to help, but I gotta ask: why us instead of Jody?”

Sam is silently relieved that the same thought occurred to Dean, although he doesn't bother being surprised. They haven't made it this far by being stupid.

Alex eyes them both for a moment.

“Listen,” she says in a slow, careful tone. Sam can see it snag Dean’s attention like a hook. “I have kind of a unique situation on my hands. I already think I know who the culprit is and why they're doing what they're doing, I just don't know how they're doing it or how to make them stop. And there are...extenuating circumstances.”

“Extenuating circumstances,” Dean repeats. He sets his fork down on the edge of his plate.

Alex licks her lips.

“The police can't be involved,” she says. “So I can't ask Jody or Donna for help. I'd ask Claire, but this is really delicate, and Claire is -”

“Claire,” Sam finishes with a small smile.

Alex weakly returns it.

“We'll take care of it, Alex, whatever it is,” Sam says. “What's going on?”

“There's this girl,” Alex begins. She twists the cup of coffee in her hands, sliding her fingers across the white ceramic in a smooth, thoughtful motion. The ring on her thumb taps idly at the rim. “She came into the hospital last night badly hurt and giving only vague answers about how it happened. I kinda got the sense that something, you know, weird was going on, so I tried talking with her. It turns out she's testifying against her former boss in a sexual assault case. It’s going to trial soon, and she's started to experience...accidents.”

“Uh-huh,” Dean says with the appropriate amount of skepticism at this word choice.

“Right,” Alex agrees. “They only happen when she's totally alone, and they're all really strange. Things flying across the room at her, invisible hands pushing and pulling - that sort of thing. At first they were more frightening than dangerous, but now they're starting to escalate. She's worried something might be trying to do some serious harm, maybe even kill her. She's also worried that if she says anything about it - well, the defense will paint her as hysterical and say she's not in her right mind, that she's making everything up for attention, including the assault. It could end up ruining the whole case.”

“They can do that?” Dean asks, aghast.

Sam and Alex both give him a pitying look.

“That's screwed up,” Dean says. “I mean, she's clearly being attacked if she's in the friggin’ hospital. Who would lie about that?”

“You'd be surprised at what a well paid attorney can convince a credulous jury of,” Sam says.

Dean shakes his head.

“And to think - once upon a time, you wanted to be one.”

Sam pointedly ignores this ancient barb. There are more important things to deal with at the moment.

“That explains why you don't want to involve Jody or Donna,” he says to Alex. “If they're caught meddling in a case outside their jurisdiction without permission, it could cause a mistrial.”

“Exactly.” She sighs. “I'm pretty sure it's the boss or someone close to him, but I'm also pretty sure it's witness intimidation. Someone wants to scare this girl out of testifying, ruin her credibility as a witness, or just eliminate her completely. That's unacceptable. They can't get away with it. However this thing - whatever it is - is stopped, it can't interfere with the proceedings, and it can't be linked back to the victim. At all. The trial has to move forward. Do you see what I'm saying?”

Sam lets out a rattling breath.

“Yeah,” he says. “I get it.” To Dean, he says, “We can't strongarm this one. And we can't get caught.”

“If you can't do it, that's fine,” Alex adds quickly. “Not just for those reasons. I know you guys are busy. But if you can recommend someone else…”

“Hey,” Dean says with a smile. “No worries. We've got this, Alex. Discretion is our middle name.”

He smiles broadly, and Alex doesn't look like she knows whether to be concerned or reassured. Sam knows the feeling.

][

The girl's name is Annalise Dryden. Alex gives Sam and Dean her address and they have a brief debate about whether to go there straight away or wait for morning. There's a chance that Annalise is in immediate danger, and they want to check her place for hex bags, but Alex reports that the attacks have all happened days apart and only ever when Annalise was alone. Annalise's mother is with her now. It’s also late, and arriving in the night unexpectedly might bring up awkward questions.

Unable to decide one way or the other, Alex excuses herself to call Annalise and ask what she wants to do. Sam and Dean eat their food and watch Alex pacing slowly back and forth in the parking lot, slipping in and out of the orange halo of a nearby street light. Into the shadows she goes, and then back out again.

“Messed up case,” Dean says after several minutes of silence.

Sam hums in agreement.

“Sometimes our lives actually seem simpler compared to everyone else's,” Dean continues. “At least we can just shoot the bad guys most of the time.” He pauses. “Are we sure we can't just shoot the bad guy this time?”

“Dean,” Sam says in a warning tone.

“I'm just saying. It would solve everyone's problems. How’s it go? Thou shalt not suffer a rapist to keep his dick and balls?”

“A witch to live,” Sam corrects.

“Close enough.”

“I'd like to avoid getting on the police’s radar again if at all possible,” Sam says. “I'm kind of over the whole wanted poster thing.” He wipes his mouth with his paper napkin and tosses it down onto his empty plate, then leans back in the booth until the plastic covering is pressed firmly against his whole back, the wall against his head and shoulders. There is no gap behind him. “I don't know, Dean. I just think the girl deserves justice.”

“Shooting him's not justice?” Dean asks.

“The legal system does actually do something other than get in your way, you know,” Sam says. “He won't just get jail time, the truth about him will be exposed for everyone to see. If he's convicted, he’ll be put on a sex offender registry and he'll probably lose his career, his friends, maybe even his family, if he's got one. His life will be ruined.”

Dean raises a finger.

“If he's convicted,” he says.

Sam shrugs.

“And if he isn’t convicted?” Dean asks.

He and Sam look at each other for a long, loaded moment.

“So is this our thing now?” Sam finally asks. “Extrajudicial vigilante justice against human beings?”

“No,” Dean says. “Extrajudicial vigilante justice against _monsters_. It wasn’t enough to just hurt his victim, now he has to curse her, too. That’s exactly the kind of bitch we’ve been ganking since day one. Seems a bit late to start making exceptions now.”

“We don't know that it's him and not someone or something else, yet. We don’t have all the facts.”

“But if it is him.”

“I don’t know, Dean,” Sam says again. “Alex is right. We shouldn’t interfere with the trial.”

Dean scowls and shakes his head and Sam resists the urge to hunch over the way he would have five years ago or maybe even less.

“You know, Sam, you're working awfully hard to defend this bastard,” Dean says sharply. “It's starting to piss me off.”

“I'm not defending him!” Sam snaps back. “I'm just -”

“Playing devil's advocate?” Dean asks with an odd twist to his lips.

Sam's mouth slams shut with a click, tight enough to keep his stomach leaping up out of his body the way it seems to want to. His skin crawls with discomfort. The silence that falls between them is even more loaded now, and Sam has a panicked moment where he feels nearly dizzy with the speed of his thoughts.

He can't figure out if Dean is hinting at something or if he's just being a jerk, using an ironic turn of phrase. Dean's face reveals nothing. Sam keeps his own carefully blank.

Suddenly, despite the wall behind him, he feels Lucifer's breath on the back of his neck. Sweat prickles on his skin at the abrupt chill. He reaches back to rub at the vulnerable spot and slouches forward in his seat, breaking eye contact with his brother.

“Look,” he says, appeasing. “I just think it’s not up to us to decide who lives and dies, and I'm a little worried about how eager you are to jump to murder one, okay? Let's at least do some basic research first. Talk to the - to Annalise.”

“Okay,” Dean relents. “But I'm offering to shoot him.”

Further argument on the subject is cut short by Alex's return. She glances between them, perhaps sensing the tension still lingering in the air, but makes no comment.

“She says you can come over now, if you want,” she says instead. “After I explained about hex bags, she agreed that it would be better to have a professional take a look around. She was a little reluctant - I think she's not entirely convinced she's not having some kind of nervous break.”

Sam exchanges a quick look with Dean.

“I hate to ask,” Sam says, “but is there any chance that it _is_ a nervous break?”

Alex emphatically shakes her head, ‘no.’

“A big, heavy bookcase fell on top of her while her back was turned,” she says. “She has a hairline fracture in her arm, a mild concussion, and a lump on the back of her skull the size of a rock. She didn’t do that to herself, not when she’s about a hundred pounds soaking wet.”

Sam's eyebrows shoot up.

“Alright then,” Dean says. “Let's head over and take a look.”

][

Sam doesn’t have time to do much more than pull up a local news article about the case on the way over to Annalise’s place. The article is short - ‘Local business man charged with sexual assault’ - and scant on pertinent details. There are no photos, and the bulk of the text focuses on how Philip Greer (45) is a lifelong church-goer and a well respected member of his community. Sam makes a small noise in his throat and flicks the article away without bothering to convey this information to Dean.

Their first impression of Annalise, then, is of a small, pale girl, barely out of her teens, standing solemnly in the cracked doorway of her mother’s home. A dark purple bruise peeks down into her face out of her hairline.

Sam is surprised when he sees her because - for a brief, startling moment, he loathes her.

Annalise is so small and fragile, skittish, bracing herself for an oncoming blow. She looks like she’s on the verge of tears. She looks like she’s about to snap in half. She looks pathetic. Out of nowhere, like a lightning bolt striking on a clear day, Sam feels a vicious stab inside his chest and thinks - you’re nothing like me. You’re weak.

Lucifer would have broken Annalise in a heartbeat. And Sam hates her for it.

The guilt that follows quickly at hate's heels is like a tidal wave of slime. It overtakes him so fast and hard that he rocks back on his heels and grips his hands into fists in his pockets. He feels sick with abrupt self-loathing, like the knife of his hate has been turned back around and thrust into his gut. This is just another reminder why he never talks about the Cage, not ever. Everything about it is pure toxic waste.

He wonders what the hell is wrong with him. This girl needs his help, not his judgment.

This is all because of that stupid joke Dean made back in the diner. It has Sam’s head doing things it shouldn’t, going places he thought he learned to leave well enough alone. He needs to shake it off. But he can’t quite seem to manage. Annalise stares up at them, one arm clutching the other in its sling, shoulders hunched to make herself as small a target as possible, and Sam wants nothing more than to turn around and run back to the Impala and hide. He senses, at once, that coming here may have been a mistake.

“I’m Dean, this is Sam,” Dean introduces them, oblivious to the mess in Sam’s brain. “Alex said you were expecting us.”

“Sure,” Annalise says. She hesitates, then opens the door a little wider. “Come in.”

They step past her into the house.

“My mom went to bed,” Annalise says as they enter. “I told her some paralegals from the DA’s office might swing by, so she promised to give us some privacy. Do you want something to drink? Coffee or tea?”

“I’m alright, but thank you,” Sam says with a tight smile.

Dean is already pulling out his EMF reader, flicking it on and waving it over the framed pictures hanging in the front hall. It gives out nothing but a low, normal hum.

“Why don’t you tell us about what’s been going on?” he asks. “We heard something fell on you?”

“Yeah,” Annalise says. “It’s this way.”

They follow her into the living room, where their eyes are drawn to the inevitable. A huge mahogany bookshelf taller than Sam and wide enough to cover most of the wall lies on the ground, consuming most of the room’s floor space. The couches and coffee table have been pushed aside - probably it landed partly on top of one when it fell - and the space between the furniture has mostly been filled with stacks of books waiting to be reshelved.

“It’s too heavy for us to lift,” Annalise explains. “We’re going to ask one of the neighbors to move it later.”

“Well, shucks, leave that to us,” Dean says gamely.

They do a cursory check of it, looking for hex bags or carved sigils, but find nothing. Annalise steps back and watches them heave the bookcase back upward and into place. It’s heavy enough that it really does take the both of them, plus no small amount of effort. The shelves have been knocked free of their slots, but it’s otherwise unharmed. Annalise is another story, of course. Sam thinks it’s probably because the bookcase fell on one of the couches that she wasn’t hurt any worse.

“So what happened?” Sam asks.

Annalise shrugs.

“I was just walking through the living room when I heard something behind me in the kitchen,” she says. “I paused and turned to look back. It wasn’t for more than a second or two. The next thing I know I’m on the floor and my mom is yelling my name. At the hospital they said I probably lost time when my head was hit. My mom keeps talking about how the floor is uneven, but…”

“Other stuff has been happening?” Dean asks.

Sam picks up a book off the top of a nearby stack and examines it - it’s a cookbook, and so are most of the others underneath it. Among the stacks are worn paperback thrillers and a number of familiar looking young adult novels, as well as books on gardening and Christian living. There’s nothing sinister or odd about them except that ‘Chicken Soup for the Softball Coach’s Soul’ seems a bit overly specific.

“Yeah, I mean,” Annalise starts, “I feel like I’m going crazy, but. Alex said you guys know some stuff about...weird things.”

“I promise you,” Dean says, “whatever it is, we’ve seen weirder. This is a safe place for sharing.”

Sam thinks that this might be tempting fate, but it’s too late to lodge a protest. He concentrates on searching the living room for hex bags or anything else that seems out of place.

“It started pretty soon after the indictment, a couple of months back,” Annalise says. “At first I just felt like I was being watched all the time. I chalked that up to paranoia, though. I haven’t been feeling great recently, for reasons that are probably obvious, so even when things started moving on me, I just thought it was stress. I’d set stuff down and turn away and when I came back it would be completely gone. One night I had to lock the front door four or five times before it stayed locked, and then I couldn’t help coming back to check for like an hour after. My therapist started talking about PTSD and OCD and...anyway.” She looks away, embarrassed.

“But it escalated?” Sam prompts.

He hasn’t found anything in the living room, so he ducks into the kitchen where she heard the sound. Dean follows after and goes straight for the fridge, eyeing the tupperware with interest. Sam nudges him in the side with his elbow and gets a heatless glare in return.

“I started hearing noises coming from behind me all the time,” Annalise says from the doorway. “Footsteps or breathing or, like, you know when someone moves and you can hear their clothes rustle? It really freaked me out. Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night and feel absolutely certain that someone was standing next to my bed. After the first few times I sat up and didn’t see anyone, I started just keeping my eyes clamped shut and trying to pretend I wasn’t awake, like maybe if I didn’t look they’d go away. I felt like a little kid after a scary movie.”

“Any sudden temperature drops?” Dean asks. “Bad smells? Sulfur, maybe?”

“No,” Annalise says, shaking her head.

“Huh,” Sam says. “That doesn’t sound like any hex I’ve ever heard of, but it doesn’t sound like a ghost or a demon, either.”

“Poltergeist?” Dean offers. “With the bookcase and moving objects?” He turns to Annalise. “Stuff was thrown at you, right?”

She nods.

“That came next. Little stuff, first. I heard a sound behind me one day and turned around and saw that my car keys had flown across the room onto the floor right at my feet. Then it was a hairbrush, hitting the wall next to me. Then it was a half-empty carton of milk. That hit me. Which sucked.”

Dean makes a sound of sympathy.

“Then there was the dictionary,” Annalise says, letting out a heavy breath. “That’s when it went from being spooky to threatening. It’s this big, heavy antique book, and it hit my back so hard I had a bruise for a week. From there, everything just got worse and worse. Pretty soon it wasn’t just stuff being thrown at me - I’d feel hands tugging at my hair or pinching my neck or slapping my arms. I was at the top of the stairs last week and something actually shoved me. I managed to catch myself on the banister, but. And then, well.” She raises her fractured arm in illustration.

“It almost sounds like a ghost that’s learning how to use its new abilities,” Sam says. “You know, like Bobby, or that one time we -”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean says. “But no EMF.” He shakes the device, still picking up nothing aside from the microwave. “No cold spots, either.”

“Has anyone died recently?” Sam asks Annalise anyway.

“Not that I can think of,” she says. “You guys really have no idea what this is?” She sounds worried.

“We’ll figure it out,” Sam promises her. “We always do. It’s just a matter of doing the research.”

“In the meantime,” Dean says, shoving the EMF’s antenna back into itself with a snap, “we’re gonna search the house for hex bags. Then we’re gonna give you a couple of things for protection. It sounds like this only happens when there aren’t any witnesses, so stick with your mom and give us a call if anything - and I mean anything - seems weird. No paranoia is too petty. That’s our motto, right Sammy?”

Sam is too busy giving the stove’s convection hood a thorough once-over to respond.

][

The search of the house turns up nothing.

They retreat for the night to a nearby motel, deciding not to impose on Jody until the case is dealt with. This way, there’s no risk of accidentally getting her involved. They can also keep the research a little more private in a motel. It’s one thing to paper a wall with drawings of monsters and photocopies of medieval texts, and quite another to do it with evidence from a criminal investigation of rape. It’s already bad enough that they have to do this research in the first place. Worse would be someone else stumbling onto it unprepared.

Not to mention the level of personal invasion that’s involved.

It falls to Sam, still more familiar with legal databases after all these years, to retrieve the necessary documents, trying to sort out what is and isn’t relevant as he goes. He skims quickly through the transcripts of Annalise’s statements, feeling guilty and ill. It's not so much the thing that happened that gets to him - although that's certainly pretty bad - but the way it's laid out on the screen, clinical and probing and relentless. He imagines Annalise sitting in the DA’s office, the attorney and his assistants staring at her as she speaks. He imagines the police at the station, the doctors and the nurses in the hospital, each question and touch digging ever deeper.

The words start to blur together before Sam’s eyes. 

“Can you describe for us what happened next?” 

As if anyone could and still stay sane.

Sam bounces his knee uncomfortably and hears Lucifer's voice in his head, drawling and sly: “Hey there, Sammy. I'm curious to hear. How would you describe what happens next?”

Sam thinks he would rather kill himself than write it all out like this, let alone say it out loud.

He glances over at Dean, but his brother is focused on his own laptop, face set with concentration.

Sam still sometimes wants to ask about Hell. He never does, though, because he's afraid of what Dean might say. Of the transcript that conversation would produce. Of a yes or a no. And, inevitably, of what Dean might ask right back. 

And then what? What the fuck is either of them supposed to do after that?

It's better this way. Neither of them has to undergo any more painful dissections, that special kind of mental torture they love in Hell almost more than physical torment. They tear your insides out with hooks, and then they force you to look at them. They force you to see everything in you that is ugly and unwell.

Enough of that. Enough. Sam has had enough of being forced to look. Whatever Dean has gone through, he probably feels the same. They don’t need to sit through further interrogations. They've made it this far in silence. 

So Sam keeps his peace and turns his attention to Philip Greer (45) and all known associates.

He’s a manager at a marketing firm whose regional office is in Salem, and he’s worked there for fifteen years with an unblemished record. He’s never received a complaint from an employee about inappropriate behavior, and the worst anyone other than Annalise has to say is that he has a tendency toward strictness.

Philip has a wife and a son, the latter only a few years younger than Annalise. Both have remained quiet, the wife only appearing once or twice in the record to say that Philip has never been violent or drunk.

The entered plea is ‘not guilty.’ There is no getting around the fact that he and Annalise had sex. There is proof enough of that. But Philip claims that it was consensual, that the worst crime he’s guilty of is infidelity.

It’s very nearly her word against his.

The word is this: How she was young and attractively dressed and eager to help out. How she blushed and was pleased when he praised her work. How she went out of her way to gain his approval. How she flirted. Their hands brushed. The whole office agrees - she had a crush.

Sam thinks of the blank look in Annalise’s eyes when she opened the door. To the black letters of the police statement.

> **Q.** **And then what happened next?**
> 
> A. Um… He - I mean, Mr. Greer put his hand on my shoulder. I started to feel uncomfortable.
> 
> **Q.** **But you didn’t try to move away?**
> 
> A. I didn’t want to seem rude.
> 
> **Q.** **So you didn’t try to move away?**
> 
> A. No.

His mind slides back into the Cage.

“There’s no point in lying, Sam,” Lucifer is saying in his ear. “The only person you’re deceiving is yourself. I can see it all laid out, nice and neat - all your thoughts and impulses and wants and needs. You put on that face like you want me to leave you alone, but if I do, you’ll sob and moan until I come back. So, really, I’m just doing what you want. Say, ‘thank you,’ Sam. Come on. Don’t be rude. All that separates civilized folk from the animals are manners, you know. There we are. Attaboy. You are so very welcome, Sam. It was my pleasure.”

Sam slaps the lid of his laptop shut with maybe too much force. Dean looks up.

“Problem?” he asks.

“Just not finding anything that points to occult tendencies,” Sam says. “I don’t think there’s anything useful in here.”

“Nothing in the other police records, either,” Dean says. “Looks like he had a DUI back in his twenties, and an argument over property lines with a neighbor that got ugly, but the neighbor doesn’t seem to have had any ghostly issues. This guy really just doesn’t scream ‘witchcraft.’”

“Could be the wife,” Sam says. “She sells homemade jewelry online, but it all looks like normal junk, no spiritual stuff. Or the attorney? Scaring off witnesses to secure cases?”

“Yeah, but how?” Dean asks. “Some kind of spell?”

“We could always call Rowena.”

Dean makes a sound of deep disgust.

“I’m not that desperate, yet.” He glances at the time on his phone. “Wanna drop by the office and take a quick poke around?”

“Sure,” Sam agrees.

He could really do with a change of scenery.

][

The thing is, he and Analise are completely different people. Beyond the superficial surface details - and barely even those - there’s nothing worth comparing. Her life is completely foreign to Sam, her experiences. He doesn’t know why this case is bothering him so much. All this over one stupid joke. He’s had enough practice at ignoring everything that happened in the Cage that he should be used to doing it by now.

Maybe it’s the insinuation that they _are_ similar that’s getting to him. He recalls that stab of unwarranted hate. You’re not like me, he’d thought. But maybe it had been more like - I’m not like you. I’m not that weak.

Sam frowns and forces himself to focus. This train of thought is pointless. All it is is picking at scabs.

He sweeps the beam of his flashlight over the only empty cubicle in the office and thinks it must have been hers. There are discolored spots on the low plastic dividing walls where pictures must have once hung. A ring in the dust in the corner of the desk advertises where a pencil holder or small plant or something once sat. He sinks down into the rickety chair as if to assume her point of view, only to wrinkle his nose in distaste.

Now he’s thinking about that time he and Dean had their memories altered. If anything, he’s gotten bigger since then. His knees bang awkwardly against the bottom of the desk. After a moment, he bends down to check underneath it, but doesn’t find even a chewed wad of gum.

“Could it be one of her former coworkers?” Dean asks, picking up the bobble-head of some football player off of a desk a few rows down and shaking it experimentally.

“Maybe,” Sam says, standing back up. “Most of them don’t come outright and call her a liar in their statements, but they clearly think she’s at least exaggerating what happened. A couple of them got kind of mean, but mostly they were more callous than malicious. Someone said they thought she slept with him to get a raise and then got cold feet about it later.”

Dean whistles and dumps the bobble-head in a wastebasket where it clatters and breaks.

“Whoops,” he says flatly.

Sam shakes his head.

“Humans, man,” Dean says.

“Find any conveniently labeled grimoires?” Sam asks. “Filing cabinets filled with jars of lamb’s blood and cat skulls?”

There’s a rattling noise as Dean jimmies a lock.

“No, but I found someone’s porn collection.”

“What? No way.” Sam leans over the cubicle wall to stare at the skin mag in Dean’s hand. “I can’t believe people still have hard copies of porn. At their jobs.”

“Heh. Hard.”

“I also can’t believe you’re touching that with your bare hands.”

Dean considers that, then drops the magazine back into the desk drawer. He knocks it shut with his hip and does a slow turn, examining the dark office.

“Whaddya think?” he asks. “Should we hack the boss’s computer?”

“It’s worth a look.”

They head into the office with ‘Philip Greer’ printed on the door. Unlike Annalise’s stripped workstation, it’s still filled with his things - photos of the family, knick-knacks and other clutter. Along the ledge under the window is a row of books about successful management and communication. ‘Ten Tricks to Building a Positive Workplace Environment.’ Apparently they missed, ‘Keep your hands to yourself.’

“It’s lame that he still has his job and Annalise doesn’t,” Dean says.

“Agreed,” Sam says. “I don’t blame Annalise for quitting, though. I wouldn’t have wanted to come back.”

Dean grunts and picks up one of the picture frames off the desk as Sam slides into the chair in front of the computer, feeling a little grossed out to be sitting there.

“This is where it happened, right?” Dean asks.

“Yeah.”

Dean doesn’t say anything to that. He stares at the picture for a long time, and the only sound is the clicking of keys beneath Sam’s fingers. It takes him a few minutes to crack the computer, but the company doesn’t exactly have state of the art cybersecurity, so it’s not too much trouble. As always, the simple action makes him miss Charlie. He tries not to dwell on that too much.

“Don’t break anything that people will notice,” he reminds Dean when it’s been close to ten minutes and the picture frame is still in his brother’s hand.

“I know,” Dean says. He passes the photo to Sam. “Do you think it could be the kid?”

Sam eyes the family portrait. Philip Greer stands with his wife, Lydia, and his son, Preston, on a beach somewhere, the rocky coast and ocean behind them. A slight wind tousels their dark hair. All three of them are wearing sunglasses and rosy-red smiles, the beginnings of sunburn on their cheeks.

The kid looks normal enough. Sixteen, Sam recalls. He doesn’t look like a goth satan worshipper, but he doesn’t look like a country club prep, either. Just normal. He looks like the worst thing he’s ever done is cut class or enjoy a Quentin Tarantino movie. But then again.

“Could be,” Sam says. “We’ll have to try and get into their house at some point. It might be hard, though.”

Dean hums.

“Could do it another way,” he says. “You said the wife has an online store? We could try contacting her through that, pretend to be looking for protective jewelry or something, try to gauge how much she knows about magic, if anything. As for the kid, well, they’re all online these days. Shouldn’t be too hard to figure out what kinds of forums he hangs out on, right?”

“Huh,” Sam says.

“What?” Dean smirks. “I can be subtle. Like I said to Alex - discretion is -”

He’s cut off by the ringing of his phone.

“It’s Annalise,” he says, pulling it out of his pocket. He answers and Sam swivels around to pay attention. “Hey, what’s up? Whoa, hey, it’s okay. No, don’t worry about it. I told you to call if anything happened, and I meant anything. Are you okay? Okay, that’s good. Where’s your mom? Do you still have the salt I gave you? Good job, that’s exactly right. Sit tight just like that and we’ll head your way. It shouldn’t be more than ten minutes.”

He hangs up and Sam gives him a questioning look.

“She said she heard something,” Dean says. “She sounded really shaken up about it. I think it said something to her.” He tucks his phone back into his pocket. “Do you want me to go ahead without you while you finish up here?”

“Nah,” Sam says, turning to shut the computer back down. “There’s nothing here. Just work emails.”

Besides, he really doesn’t want to have to hang out in this office any longer than necessary.

][

It’s close to one in the morning when they make it back to Annalise’s place, and she’s even paler and more withdrawn when she answers the door. She balks at the sight of Dean with a gun in his hands, ducking quickly inside to check the house for intruders.

“Is that a gun?” she asks, a bit dumbly.

Dean winks at her.

There’s not really a comforting way to respond to that - don’t worry, he’ll only use it if he finds a monster lurking somewhere; yes that’s a possibility - so Sam gently guides Annalise into the living room. There’s a circle of salt on the floor, far away from the bookcase, which is nearly filled with books again.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she says. “I didn’t think anything would happen so soon, and not when I was staring right at it, but then I heard…” She trails off.

“What was it?” Sam asks.

“It sounded like a voice,” Annalise says.

“Did you recognize it?”

She shakes her head. “It was too quiet.”

“All clear,” Dean says, joining them. “Your mom’s still asleep upstairs.”

“What did it say?” Sam asks. “The voice.”

Annalise reaches her hand up to her mouth and starts gnawing on one of her knuckles, avoiding eye-contact.

“Annalise, whatever it is - ”

“It called me a liar,” she whispers. She drops her hand. “I’m not, though! I’m not lying about what happened, I promise! I know everyone thinks I am, but I swear -”

“Hey, hey,” Sam says. “We don’t think you’re lying. We aren’t going to take the word of some evil spirit over you.”

Annalise’s shoulders slump in relief.

“Why don’t you walk us through what happened?” Dean says.

“Like I told Sam, I couldn’t sleep,” she begins. “So I came downstairs to put books away. That was at about eleven or eleven thirty. I was doing that for a while just fine, and then, just before I called you -”

“A little bit past twelve thirty,” Dean offers.

“That sounds right,” she says. “I heard something moving behind me again. I didn’t want to turn and look because it was the same as last time, when the bookshelf fell on me. So I just stayed facing forward, looking at the shelf, not moving. That’s when I heard a voice whisper right in my ear. All it said was - ‘liar.’ I stood there for a while because I was scared to move, but nothing else happened, so I went and got the salt and called you.” She tugs at a chain around her neck. “I was wearing the talisman you gave me.”

“Well, I’m not hot on you hanging out alone in the middle of the night in front of the thing that almost killed you,” Dean says. “That wasn’t real smart.”

“I know, I just thought - if it wants to hurt me, it doesn’t matter where I am. And if I’m facing the bookshelf, it won’t be able to use that, because it’s only ever attacked me from behind. I felt like I was defeating it somehow. Taking away a weapon or something. I don’t know. Plus…” Annalise gestures to the fireplace. Sam and Dean turn to look. There, sitting on the mantle, is a small round camera with a white light on. “I set up my wireless webcam. I was hoping it would count as someone watching. And if not...then I’d have proof.”

Sam crosses quickly over to it, staring into its black, unblinking fish eye.

“This is recording?” he asks.

Annalise nods.

“I haven’t looked at it yet. My computer’s upstairs, and I’m kind of scared of what might be on it.”

“Are you kidding - that’s perfect!” Sam says. “This is brilliant, Annalise!”

And for the first time, Annalise smiles.

][

The video is several hours long by this point, and it takes them a minute to narrow down the correct time stamp. Annalise stands in the living room, dimly illuminated by a standing lamp. Using her one good arm, she carefully replaces the books, one at a time, never turning her face from the bookshelf. Every once in a while she backs away to pick up a glass of water sitting on a nearby console, or to work out the kinks in her shoulders, but that’s all.

Then, at three minutes past twelve thirty, she suddenly stills. The webcam didn’t record sound, but it’s clear this is the moment she heard something behind her. Sam searches the frame for a source, but there’s nothing obvious. Annalise stands frozen, her arm part way raised. Then, abruptly, she jolts, her shoulders going up to her ears. That must be the moment she heard the whisper. Still, nothing appears.

She remains frozen for a few more minutes, then backs slowly toward the kitchen and out of the frame.

“Play it again,” Dean says.

Sam is already rewinding. He replays the footage at half speed, examining each second for a sign of change.

“There,” Dean says, jabbing a finger at the screen just a few moments before the first event.

Sam pauses, then goes back and plays the last couple seconds frame by frame.

On the ground, just visible between the gap in the couches, a sliver of a shadow moves.

“The light source changes,” Sam says. “Something between her and the lamp?”

“No, look.” Dean points at the shadow cast by the nearest stack of books. “That’s the only shadow that moves.”

“Weird.”

Sam clicks forward to the moment Annalise hears the whisper. There, again, in the exact same spot - the shadow moves.

“Something really was behind me,” Annalise says faintly, watching over their shoulders. “This whole time, it’s been following me around…”

“But we still don’t know what,” Sam says.

He rewinds the video even further, going back to its start, trying to place which shadows belong to which objects in the room. Slowly, they watch the film, waiting for the shadow that moves in the later footage to appear. When it finally does, Sam clicks the video to a halt with a start. Annalise has just moved into position in front of the bookcase. 

Sam and Dean turn to stare at each other. It’s Annalise’s shadow.

“What the hell does that mean?” Dean asks.

Sam has no idea.

][

“Alright, well, thanks,” Sam says into his phone. The motel room door opens and Dean enters, arms laden with takeout. “If you think of anything, let me know. Yeah. Bye.” Sam hangs up and stands to take one greasy brown bag for himself.

“I take it Rowena didn’t have anything to add,” Dean says.

“Nothing helpful,” Sam says. “She said that if it is a curse or hex, it’s not her kind of mojo, and we’d have more luck consulting a bokor.”

“Real voodoo,” Dean says, popping a fry into his mouth. “In South Dakota.”

“It does seem unlikely.” Sam pulls his chicken sandwich out of the bag and examines it somewhat despondently. Years of road food have desensitized him to Dean’s ideas about breakfast, but having access to an actual kitchen in the bunker means he no longer enjoys it with quite the same indifference. He takes a bite anyway, knowing better than to complain. “Have you talked to Annalise again?”

“Not since we left last night.”

They’d been reluctant to leave, but she hadn’t wanted her mom to wake up to find strange men staying in the house. Instead, they’d set her up in her room with a UV light, an empty milk jug filled with salt, and orders to call at either the first sign of trouble or the next morning when it was okay for them to return, whichever came first. Neither Sam nor Dean had been jazzed about the situation, but Annalise had been adamant in her decision.

“It’s still early,” Sam says, glancing at the digital clock on the nightstand. 8:12 AM. “We’ll wait another hour and then swing by.”

“Sounds good. You find anything?”

Sam sighs and squeezes the bridge of his nose. He only got a couple of hours of sleep, interrupted by nightmares filled with abstract shapes and grotesque shadows. Nothing specific happened in them, but he found himself unable to shake his unease, and had gotten up at four to do some research.

“Nothing on the house,” he says. “We pretty much ruled that out already, but I wanted to double check to be safe. I think whatever this is is tied to Annalise alone. Without going back to the bunker and plumbing the library, it’s hard to say for sure, but nothing in Dad’s journal or the online database seems like a promising match. I did find out some stuff about shadows. Plenty of cultures around the world consider them to be part of the essence or aspect of whatever they’re cast by. In many places, there are superstitions or spells where you can harm a person by attacking or otherwise interfering with their shadow. Ancient Egyptians believed it was literally a part of the soul and ancient Greeks believed that you could lose your shadow - and that doing so would kill you.”

“But it’s her shadow that’s doing the harming, not the other way around,” Dean says.

“That’s what I don’t get,” Sam says. “Unless it’s not her shadow at all. Maybe it’s some kind of...parasite that latched onto or replaced it somehow. You ever run across anything like that?”

“Nope,” Dean says. “The closest thing I can think of were those shadow demons Meg set on us. The daeva or whatever. They were way more violent, though.”

“Maybe someone’s controlling one the way Meg was, keeping it intentionally on a leash.”

“If that’s the case, not much has changed,” Dean says. “We still have to find out who’s responsible. We do that, we can find and destroy their altar. Bam - the daeva rebounds and attacks its former master. Case closed.”

Hopefully it really is that simple. The sooner they can finish up here, the better.

][

Noon that day finds Sam sitting outside the Greer house in a nondescript rental car, observing the family’s comings and goings. It’s not a job he exactly leapt at, but the alternative is Dean, who is impossible to part from the Impala, and who might take the opportunity to fire a warning shot into Philip Greer’s kneecap.

So Sam sits in the cramped little Prius just across the street, doing his best to look like a Jehovah’s Witness who has stopped to eat lunch before starting his rounds. This is a ruse that has served him successfully on multiple occasions, and requires only a half-eaten burger and a box full of pamphlets. Any inquisitive neighbors or police officers will become instantly deterred from further questioning when he rolls down the window and invites them to accept Jesus into their hearts. 

But the street is quiet. Sam remains undisturbed. The Greer house is quiet, too.

It’s Wednesday, so Preston is at school, having already left before Sam arrived. Lydia is visible through the picture windows of the house’s sitting room, framed by white valance curtains. She sits hunched at a table, the natural light spilling down across the subject of her concentration. Her jewelry, probably. It’s impossible to tell from this distance and midday suburbia isn’t exactly the kind of place where a pair of binoculars is welcome.

There’s no sign of Philip for the first couple of hours. He still has his job, but he’ll only be working a few days a week until the trial concludes. The emails Sam had skimmed last night were full of polite euphemisms and embarrassed reassurances. No one at the company seems to think Philip will actually be convicted, but the trial is nonetheless a bad bit of business that has to be dealt with.

Wednesday is Philip’s day off. He spends the morning and early afternoon doing whatever it is All-American rapists do. Filling in the crossword. Checking his online auction bids. Polishing his golf clubs. Whatever it is, he does it inside and out of sight.

So the time passes.

Sam is flipping through one of the Jehovah’s Witness leaflets with a dull sort of irony - “Have you heard the good news? Sam Winchester has been Saved!” - when Philip Greer finally rolls open the door to his garage and pushes a lawn mower out onto the drive.

Sam drops the pamphlet and watches his progress with bald fascination.

Philip is plain, like in his photos - more attractive than unattractive, but that’s mostly thanks to the fact that he’s kept in shape despite his office job than any of his particular features. He has thick wrists and full hair and there is no tension in his shoulders. He glances at the sky, clear blue with a few wispy white clouds, then bends down to pop the cap on the lawn mower and refill its tank with gasoline.

Philip Greer looks so ordinary. So undisturbed. It’s as if the law hasn’t touched him at all. Neither has malice. It’s almost impossible to picture what he did to Annalise, except that he did it, and there he is, drawing the cord on the mower - once, twice, until the engine starts - then guiding it onto his front lawn. He’s wearing old, battered tennis shoes.

It’s amazing how normal the world can appear.

Unbidden, the image of Lucifer in Castiel’s vessel comes to mind. 

Sam thinks of that moment when he realized what was happening, the shock. How easily the Devil had kept his disguise. He thinks of Lucifer in the bunker, touching their things, walking their halls, going through their rooms and breaking it all down with his eyes. Disintegrating everything. Taking the familiar and throwing it into an obscure, unnavigable haze that, weeks later, found Sam still waiting feverishly for unseen trap doors to open beneath his feet. Lucifer had made a labyrinth of Sam’s own room, of his scant few possessions. Just by existing in their vicinity, he had transformed them into caricatures of themselves.

The air kept a bitter aftertaste.

But to look at him - it had been Castiel. Jimmy Novak. Plain, inoffensive, safe. There were moments when Sam could turn his head and see Lucifer-in-Cas out of the corner of his eye and feel both that things were business as usual after all and that he had probably gone insane. Everyday life had become a pantomime where Sam played both roles. He pretended everything was fine, but it wasn’t. He pretended that some part of him _wasn’t_ completely fine. But it was.

All that had gotten him through those bizarre, hideous days had been Lucifer’s total ambivalence. It was like Sam was a toy that Lucifer had gotten bored of, had broken one too many times for it to be fun anymore. The game had lost its charm. Sam was mostly free.

Except a part of him resented that, didn’t it? 

All these parts of him. All these jagged edges in his gut that slip against each other and slide into his flesh and leave awful, bleeding cuts. They rattle and moan like the undead longing to rise, like a corpse that misses the pain of being alive, and yet still begs, ‘Let me rest.’

Leave me alone. But pay attention to me first. Why did you hurt me this way if it didn’t matter? How can it not have mattered to you? Please tell me that it was special.

Sam jerks the keys in the ignition and puts the rental car in drive without consciously deciding to. He caves to some instinctive need to escape, as if putting space between himself and Philip Greer will create space between himself and his own ruminations, too. He leaves them lying in the gutter there, like litter - a crumpled burger wrapper, the remains of an unfinished meal, a pamphlet declaring humanity’s salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Trash.

][

The days have long passed since Sam and Dean could have lied and told Annalise’s mother they were friends from college. The paralegal ruse won’t pass scrutiny, either, and won’t explain their presence if they have to stick around. Sam knows this. He’s prepared to play along with whatever new story Dean has concocted in his absence.

The lie Annalise’s mother greets Sam with on his return to the Dryden house is, “Annalise tells me she met you and your brother at the hospital.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Sam says.

She eyes him for a minute, sizing him up. It’s clear she’s not keen on them being there.

“Well, your brother’s been helping out around the house,” she says after a beat. “And Annalise has been in a better mood.” Her voice drops to a more sympathetic tone. “I’m sorry about your sister.”

Sam gives her a sad half-smile and wonders what kind of sob story Dean’s cooked up. He wishes Dean had texted him the details. Oh well. Sam has enough experience with grief that he hardly has to fake it. All he has to do is think of someone he’s let down and say ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ which is something like his catch phrase, anyway. Maybe he should get it printed on a shirt.

Still, when he finds Dean in the bathroom tightening the pipes under the sink, Sam makes a point to ask, “What’d you tell Annalise’s mom?”

“That Annalise reminds us of our sister who recently passed away,” Dean says. “Tracy makes a mean potato salad, by the by. There’s still some in the fridge if you want lunch.”

“I ate already,” Sam says. “Charlie?”

Dean pulls his head out from under the cabinet and looks up at him, weighing the wrench in his hand.

“Jo,” he finally says.

Sam nods slowly.

“She’s about the right age, huh?” There is something of a resemblance, too, now that he thinks about it. It’s the nose. Annalise is more timid, but, then again, Jo had always been a bit softer than she thought she was. “God, how old would she be now? Thirty?”

“No idea,” Dean says, even though there’s not a chance that’s true. “How was the Greer house?”

He climbs to his feet and drops the wrench back into the Drydens’ old metal tool box. He checks the faucet quickly, then washes his hands, scraping the dirt out from under his nails.

“Boring,” Sam says. “Neither Philip nor his wife looked like they were leaving anytime soon and nothing nefarious was going on, so after a few hours of sitting and doing nothing, I decided to bail.”

“You didn’t try talking to them?” Dean asks. “Getting a vibe?”

Sam shrugs and deflects by asking, “What about the son? Any problems finding him online?”

“It turns out that Annalise is great at that kind of thing,” Dean says. “We found his Twitter using his full name. It was private but his handle was unique so we used that as a stepping-off point to figure out which usernames he uses on other sites. Annalise was the one who knew where we should look, and she found him right away.”

“Should she be doing that?” Sam asks, both because he's not sure what will happen if someone finds out and because he's not sure it's healthy. Not that he’s the poster child for healthy coping mechanisms.

“It's fine,” Dean dismisses. He wipes his hands dry on a decorative towel. “Anyway, we found him on a self-help forum making posts about what to do when someone you love turns out not to be the person you thought they were. All pretty vague, but it was obvious he meant his dad.”

“Jesus,” Sam says, leaning back against the door frame.

“Yeah, can you say, daddy issues for life?” Dean says. “Kid's gonna need so much therapy.”

“Don't even joke about that,” Sam says, reaching up to cover his eyes wearily with one hand.

And for once he thinks - there's someone who has it worse. Whatever John and God were, at least they weren't rapists.

“You okay there, Sammy?”

Sam drops his hand and finds Dean standing in front of him, expression shrewd.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Fine. It's just this case, you know? Heavy stuff.”

Dean nods in agreement and seems to let it go.

“I guess we can rule out one suspect, anyway,” Sam says. “Where’s Annalise at now?”

“In her room,” Dean says. “Waiting for a response from Lydia Greer’s Etsy shop.” He picks the tool box up off the floor. “I’m gonna go put this back. Meet you there.”

They part ways, Sam wandering up the stairs toward the bedrooms. Annalise’s door is closed, so he knocks lightly. It slips partly open under the weight of his knuckles.

“Annalise?”

There’s no response, so Sam pushes it open the rest of the way and finds her standing with her back turned. The overhead light is off and the curtains are drawn over the window. The UV light is on, sitting on a chair behind her, casting her shadow onto the far wall.

“Annalise, what are you doing?” Sam asks, stepping forward.

“Keeping an eye on it,” Annalise says mutely.

She doesn’t take her gaze from her own opaque silhouette.

“You don’t need to do that,” Sam says. “We don’t know what this thing is or what it can do. This could be dangerous.”

“I have to do something,” she says. “I can’t just...I can’t just sit by and wait for it to hurt me. Let it hurt me. I’m done doing that.”

There’s an iron set to her shoulders.

“Annalise…” Sam says gently. “What happened with your boss...it wasn’t your fault.”

Two things happen at once.

First, Annalise’s head snaps to the side and she glares at Sam as she snaps, “What do you know about it!”

Second, the very instant Annalise looks away, her shadow moves.

It jerks and slumps like a puppet suddenly cutting free from its strings, its limbs spasming into motion. Then - there is no other way to describe it - it lunges toward Annalise, the shape distorting as it darts down the wall and across the floor toward her, arms outstretched.

“Look out!” Sam yells, grabbing Annalise’s arm.

She gasps and stumbles backward, her eyes snapping forward once more. The shadow freezes in a thick, oblong pool, inches from her feet.

“Holy shit,” Sam breathes. “Don’t look away from it.”

“Sam!” Dean shouts, running into the room. “What’s going on?”

“Her shadow moved.”

Sam reaches behind Annalise and turns off the UV light as Dean flicks on the overhead. The thick, black smudge on the carpet fades in intensity. Sam hesitates, then steps past it to throw open the curtains. The room is flooded completely with light. Annalise’s shadow diffuses until it’s barely anything at all. It wavers, flickers, then slides back onto the wall the way a shadow might be tossed by a car’s headlights sweeping past a window. It returns to its proper place and retakes its proper shape, reflecting Annalise’s defensive stance.

“Annalise, are you okay?” Annalise’s mother calls, the first stairs creaking under her feet.

“Fine, Mom!” Annalise calls back. “I just tripped and surprised Sam!”

There’s a pause.

“Alright, if you’re sure…” her mother says.

The stairs creak again, and then her steps slowly recede.

“What happened?” Dean asks once more.

“I was watching my shadow,” Annalise says. “Keeping it pinned to the wall. And then Sam came in and I looked away and it moved toward me."

“You were what?” Dean asks. “Oh, ‘cause that’s not reckless at all!”

At first, Annalise shrinks back at the chastisement, but then she squares her shoulders.

“I wasn't being reckless,” she says. “I was doing it last night, too, and nothing happened. I had everything under control.”

Dean latches onto, “You were doing this last _night?_ ”

But Sam's mind is swerving to the side, skipping back to the moment when she had turned from the shadow to look at him, face contorted with anger. Absently, he starts to rub at the now long-healed scar on the palm of his hand.

“You said you felt in control,” he says. “Just now and last night?” At her nod, he goes on, “And what about when you heard the whisper? What were you feeling then?”

Annalise hesitates.

“What were you thinking about?” Sam presses. 

The way her eyes dart to the side is answer enough.

“What does this have to do with anything?” Dean asks.

“I don't know,” Sam says. “But I don't think we can leave her alone anymore. Not for a moment. And maybe we should relocate somewhere else. Unless you want to tell your mom…”

Annalise shakes her head sharply.

“I'll tell her we're going out for a while,” she says.

They follow her downstairs to find that her mother has gone out through the kitchen into the backyard. She’s kneeling by a small flower bed a couple yards from the open glass sliding doors. As they appear in the doorway, she looks up, a small frown on her face.

“Give me a second,” Annalise says with a sigh, and steps outside, pulling the door behind her with a snap.

Sam and Dean are left in the quiet isolation of the kitchen.

“What do you think’s going on here, Sam?” Dean asks in a low tone. “You thought of something just now, didn’t you?”

Sam sighs and watches Annalise through the glass.

“Dean,” he says. “What if she’s doing this to herself?”

It takes a second for Dean to catch on.

“What, cursing herself? Why would she do that?”

“Not on purpose,” Sam clarifies. In the backyard, Annalise's mother straightens and pulls off her gardening gloves. “More like...when my soul came back from the Cage. And I started hallucinating.”

“That wasn’t real,” Dean says. “We’ve seen this thing move. It’s not a hallucination.”

“I know, but it was still killing me,” Sam says. “Like a - a shadow of Lucifer. What I went through was bad enough that my own mind -”

“This and that are not the same thing,” Dean says, starting to sound angry.

Sam glances over at him and is surprised at the intensity of his brother’s expression.

“Aren’t they kind of?” Sam asks. “I was -”

“- in the Cage with Lucifer,” Dean finishes. “That’s on a completely different level from -”

“- the worst thing that’s ever happened in Annalise’s life?” Sam asks. “Maybe she’s conjuring up some kind of poltergeist activity in response to the trauma. It’s been known to happen, especially with young women and -”

“I’m not gonna go out there and tell her that what’s happening is her fault,” Dean interrupts.

Sam pauses.

“Are you saying what I went through was _my_ fault?”

“No, Sammy, of course I’m not. I just -”

“- think that if it happened to anyone else, it would be their fault.”

“No!”

“Then why are you so against this?” Sam demands. “It makes sense! It’s at least worth looking into!”

“Because you and her are not the same!” Dean snaps.

He looks about two seconds from hitting Sam.

“You’re not the same!” he repeats. “It’s not the same!”

Sam’s not sure when he lost the thread of this conversation, the escape hatch, but he wants out. He has no idea what the fuck Dean is talking about right now, why they’re fighting, but he feels the edges of it drawing closer like a creeping dread. Does Dean know or doesn’t he? Does he suspect? Is this about some completely different thing that Sam has somehow missed?

It’s been years since Hell, years since the Cage, and they don’t talk about it, and it works. It works because, if they don’t talk about it, then there _is_ nothing to talk about. Nothing hangs open and gaping in between them. Yet here Sam is, peering into the canyon of their silence, only to find that something has festered and grown within, and he has no fucking clue what it is or how to kill it.

The words, ‘What is this really about, Dean?’ swim underneath his skin. He grits his teeth and presses them back. The gulf between them has ripped itself too wide. Sam doesn’t know how to cross it, how to safely pass the thing that has grown down there, unnamed.

‘Are we talking about shadows or demons or angels or ghosts? Are we talking about what was done to us or what we have done to ourselves? To others? What are you so afraid of, Dean? Are we talking about me or you?'

Sam swallows and turns away from it. He turns instead and looks back out into the yard. Annalise and her mother are arguing, too, he realizes. Annalise's mouth is moving quickly while her mother crosses her arms and frowns. She gestures toward the house, toward Sam and Dean, and says something that makes Annalise rear back as if slapped.

“What are they doing?” he mutters.

“I need some air,” Dean says. “I'll be in the car.”

Sam doesn't respond or watch him go. He watches instead as a hot flush climbs up Annalise's neck and face and her fists clench at her sides. She shakes her head and turns and storms back toward the house.

“What was that about?” he asks as she opens the door and slips back inside.

Annalise shrugs.

“My mom is worried about me going off with two strange men,” she says tightly. “She says it might look a certain way. Like I'm not an adult and it's the 50's.”

Sam suddenly remembers what Annalise said. Everyone thinks she's lying about the rape. He looks out through the glass again. Annalise's mother is standing with her arms crossed, expression grim, lips pressed into a narrow line. He thinks about how distant she’s been, removed, suspicious. About how reluctant Annalise is to tell her what’s going on. The pieces suddenly click together to form an awful truth.

Her own mom thinks she's a liar.

][

Dean is sitting in the front seat of the Impala, acting like nothing happened. The tired and true Winchester way.

“So I’m thinking we set up the motel room with as much light as we can,” he says as Sam slides into the back seat. He wants Annalise sitting up front where he can see her for the whole drive. “Try to drown this thing out. If it moves again, we treat it like a daeva - flare gun that sucker.”

“Sure,” Sam says. “I’ll call Rowena again, ask her if she can recommend a bokor.”

“What’s a daeva?” Annalise asks. “And a bokor?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” Dean says.

“I guess you guys know a lot about this kind of thing, huh?” Annalise says. “The nurse at the hospital, Alex, she told me you do this all the time. Help people with problems like mine.”

“Yep,” Dean says.

“Is that how you met her?” she asks. “You helped her out?”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “It's how we meet most people, actually.”

“So this is like your job or something,” Annalise concludes. “Driving around, exorcising other people's ghosts.”

“Or something,” Dean says. He sounds bitter. “Only we don't get paid and the benefits are crap.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“It's just what we do,” Sam says.

“You ever hear the never ending song?” Dean asks. “‘Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was, and now they keep on singing it, forever just because?’ Well, this is the never ending job.”

Annalise is quiet for a moment.

“Because stopping would be wrong,” she says at last. “Even if you don't get paid or thanked. Even if you get hurt or end up alone. You don't keep going because it's the right thing to do, but because stopping would be the wrong one. Is that it?”

Dean glances up and meets Sam's eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Yeah,” Dean says. “That's exactly it.”

][

They pull the floodlights out of the boot of the Impala along with all the UV lights they have and set them up in a circle in the motel room. Sam’s not really sure that this is going to do anything - it’s not like they can completely eliminate shadows, no matter how much light they pour into the room - but he can tell it makes both Dean and Annalise feel better to be doing something, so he goes along with it.

Once they’re finished, Annalise stands in the center, within a smaller ring of salt, and turns slowly in place, squinting against the bright illumination.

“It’s funny,” she says. “But it doesn’t feel that strange. This is how I feel all the time now anyway. Like everyone can see what’s wrong with me and can’t stop staring.”

Dean looks up from the flare guns he’s setting out on the nearby bed spread.

“Hey,” he says. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

Annalise doesn’t argue, but she doesn’t look convinced, either.

“About what you were saying earlier, Sam...” she says instead. “Is this happening because of something I’m doing? Am I making it hurt me somehow?”

“No,” Dean says. “You’re not. My brother is full of crap. He doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.”

Sam avoids Annalise’s eyes and pulls out his phone.

“I’m gonna go call Rowena,” he says. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He doesn’t wait for an acknowledgement before leaving. Out on the cement walkway, he stops and leans against the wall, looking past the eaves of the motel and up toward the clear sky. 

It’s about five o’clock now. Preston Greer will be home from school, retreating to his room to stew in silence and doubt. Lydia Greer will be putting away her beads and thread and needle, washing her hands in the kitchen and starting to make dinner. Who knows what she’s cooking? Who knows what she’s thinking? What she believes or merely feels she has to believe to survive. 

What will she do if her husband is convicted of rape? What will she do if he isn’t? Either way, she must feel hurt and betrayed. But she goes on as if she isn’t. She sits bent over her work in the afternoon light looking only at her fingers, at the steady progress they make before her eyes. Push forward. Continue on. Like Annalise’s mother in the garden, digging in the dirt, while her daughter is upstairs, confronting a monster.

What do you do when you find out the person you love isn’t who you thought they were? What do you do when you find out they’re worse than you thought? Weaker? What do you do when the veil of silence gets ripped away and everything is suddenly exposed? Reach out and draw it shut again?

Sam wonders if Lydia and Philip argue behind closed doors. He imagines them in couple’s therapy, carefully putting together ‘I’ statements to soften the blow.

I feel neglected. I feel unloved. I feel alone.

He wonders if they’ll end up getting a divorce. He wonders who Philip will blame then - himself or Lydia? Annalise?

Sam thinks about Lucifer.

“All I want is an apology,” he’d said with Castiel’s mouth. “Is that too much to ask?”

In the Cage, Sam’s broken body had laid cringing on a bed of coals, his mind so scattered and fractured that he could no longer register the difference between pleasure and pain, safety and danger, love and hate. He had laid there breathing, begging - I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. You’re right, this is all my fault.

And then: Thank you.

You’re so very welcome, Sam.

Sam imagines Dean in the front seat of the Impala asking him, “What happened? Are you okay?”

Sam turns to him and says, “I thanked the Devil for what he did to me. How about you?”

Dean meets his eyes. What kind of look is in his face? Understanding? Shame? But whose? For what? And why?

Sam reaches out and draws the curtains shut.

He looks down at his phone and pulls up the contacts. The bokor is going to be a bust, he already knows that, but it’s something to do that will make Dean less angry with him, and Sam needs that right now.

He’s scrolling down toward the R’s when a loud thump and a shout draw his attention back to the motel room. He stashes his phone and quickly shoulders his way back inside.

He’s just in time to watch Annalise hit the floor.

A black haze is wrapped around her face and neck, seemingly impervious to the light coming from all sides. Her uninjured hand claws at her throat and she gasps desperately for air. Dean stands over her, a flare gun in his hand, looking panicked.

“Don’t shoot her!” Sam yells.

“Obviously!” Dean says. “What the hell are we supposed to do?”

Sam sinks to his knees at Annalise’s side. When he grabs her shoulder, her whole body flinches, and she tears herself away, even as she kicks and squirms and chokes.

“Annalise!”

She doesn’t even seem to know he’s there.

A splash of water falls across her shoulders. Sam sees Dean out of the corner of his eye, his holy water canteen in his hand and open. It doesn’t make a difference. Neither Annalise nor the shadow even registered being doused.

“Annalise, listen to me, you’re going to be okay,” Sam says, hands hovering stupidly over her. “I’m not going to touch you but I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving you. You’re not alone.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Dean asks, turning back to his duffle bag on the bed. He rummages through it in search of something useful, pushing past rock salt shotgun shells and tupperware containers of pig’s blood.

“If this is because of what she feels, then maybe we can - can talk her down from it!” Sam says.

Annalise rasps wetly on the floor. Her face is turning red. A silver coin flies past Sam and hits her in the arm, but there’s no reaction and it thunks uselessly to the ground.

“Stop throwing things at her!” Sam snaps.

“What else am I supposed to do?” Dean demands.

“Just -” Sam starts, then cuts himself off and turns back to Annalise. “Listen to me - we believe you, okay? You’re not a liar and you’re not a bad person, Annalise. We believe you so just focus on my voice and not whatever it is that you’re thinking right now. I know it’s scary but -”

Dean is suddenly at his side, thrusting a fistful of ice cubes up against Annalise’s hand.

“I told you to stop -”

“Cold!” Dean says. “It’s good for - for panic attacks!”

Sam has a dumb moment where his mind blanks and he can’t focus on anything except - why does Dean know that? Then he snaps back into the present as Annalise shudders and gasps in a breath of air.

“Okay, good, that’s good,” Sam says. He tries to keep his voice steady even though his heart is in his throat. “You’re doing great, Annalise, I know how hard this is. Concentrate on - on trying to breathe.”

“You think?” Dean hisses.

Sam glares at him.

But it’s working - the shadow’s grip is faltering. Annalise sucks in heavy, drunken lungfuls, forcing each one in and out. Her eyes flutter shut.

“Just like that - that’s perfect,” Sam says. “We’re here. We’re not going anywhere. Take as long as you need. Dean and I aren’t leaving until you’re safe. You’re not alone. You’re not alone, Annalise.”

The shadow recedes.

It goes by inches, slowly, stubbornly, with Sam babbling almost nonsensically the whole time. Once she’s breathing steadily again, she opens her hand and accepts the melting ice cube pressed against it, squeezes it in her fist. Even when the shadow is gone, she remains lying on the floor, eyes closed, her whole body shaking. She throws an arm over her eyes. She’s crying, Sam realizes.

“It’s me,” she says through the tears. “It’s hurting me because I want it to. Because I hate myself.”

Sam and Dean look at each other, faces grave.

“We’re going to fix this,” Dean promises.

Neither of them have any idea what else to say.

][

Sam calls Rowena.

“Now that’s certainly interesting,” she says, once he’s finished explaining the situation. “I've heard of negative emotions manifesting as magical feedback, of course, but never quite like that. She'd have to have some powerful natural instincts to manifest a whole entity. Either that or some very negative emotions. Where did you say you were again?”

“Rowena,” Sam says warningly.

“Oh, very well, Samuel,” Rowena says. “You're no fun. The good news is that it's a simple fix, but you're going to need quite a lot of it from the sound of things.”

“Just tell me what to do.”

“Now there's a phrase I like to hear,” Rowena crows. “Have you got a pen and paper?”

][

Sam stays with Annalise while Dean goes on a supply run. The motel is quiet, Annalise sitting on one of the beds, staring numbly down at her knees. With the lights back to their normal level, the room is dim. Outside, the sun is setting. A pale orange glow slips through the curtains. When Annalise moves, it snags on the edge of her face, the side that still has the purple bruise.

“Talk to me,” Sam says, sitting down on the bed across from her. “Don’t get caught up in your own head.”

She huffs out a laugh.

“The human brain is so awful to itself,” she says. “I already knew that, but…”

Her expression falls. A silence stretches out between them. 

Sam wishes he knew how to close the gap. He wishes he had learned that skill at some point in his life, in between the dying and the surviving and the struggling to keep the people he cares about alive. He knows how to suture a wound. He knows how to splint a broken bone. He knows when to offer a drink and when to walk away. But he doesn’t know the first thing about how to stay. All he can do is guess.

“Talk to me,” he says again. “Tell me what you’re thinking right now.”

Annalise sits listlessly for a moment. She seems to waver, like a mirage. Like she’s not all the way there, completely. Like she’s unmoored, drifting off.

“I’m thinking about,” she starts, then stops.

Sam waits. 

“I’m thinking about when it happened,” she starts again. Sam can tell at once from her tone that she’s not talking about being choked by the shadow. “The whole time, I knew that it was wrong. I felt disgusted and violated and afraid. But I also thought - he's such a nice guy. A great boss. Everyone loves him. Even I admired him, wanted him to pay attention to me and tell me I was smart and good at my job. I couldn't help but think that maybe I was being unfair. That I was misunderstanding somehow. Maybe I was the one at fault. He was hurting me and all I could think was, what's wrong with me?” She glances briefly up at Sam, then looks away. “Isn't that messed up?”

“No,” says Sam. “I understand.”

“And now,” she goes on, “my therapist keeps telling me how brave I am for facing him, and I just feel even worse. I feel like a liar. Because the truth is, I'm not scared of him. He already hurt me. That's over with. It's everyone else I'm afraid of now. I'm terrified of people seeing me, seeing what happened, picking at it and ridiculing it and judging me. I'm so fucking scared that the trial is going to come and they're going to tell me what I already secretly think - that it really is me who's wrong. That whatever he did is nothing in comparison to this horrible thing inside me, the…the thing that I am. I'm not brave at all. I want to run away, to be honest. Sometimes I get close to doing it. Whenever I think about going to trial I feel sick. But going back on everything now, letting everyone think I made it up - it wouldn’t help. The things they’d think about me would be even worse than whatever they think now. And maybe I’d deserve it. Everyone will hate me forever no matter what, but if I shut up and do nothing and he does this to someone else, makes some other girl hate herself like this, then it'll be all my fault. I’ll be just as guilty.”

“Hey,” Sam says. “You aren't guilty.”

She shakes her head.

“You aren't responsible for the things he's done or will do, no matter what happens next,” he says. “And you are brave. You are so incredibly brave. You’re one of the bravest people I've ever met.”

She laughs again, without any real humor, and picks at a loose thread in her sling. “I know you’re just saying that to make me feel better because.” She shrugs her shoulders heavily, as if to indicate the whole room and all its shadows.

“I'm not,” Sam says. “I'm completely serious. Look, I've been fighting stuff my whole life. Ghosts and demons and… I've faced things that most people can't even imagine well enough to be scared of. But you know what I can't do? Talk about it. I sit in my brother's car with him, the one person in the universe who would understand, who loves me unconditionally, and he asks me, what happened? Are you okay? And I say I'm fine. But I'm not. I'm really, really not. And I say nothing.”

She's still playing with her sling, neck bent to hide her eyes. Sam wipes a hand over his face, rubbing at the creases there, and he didn't used to have those, did he? When did that happen? When did the years and all they contained settle into his skin like this, deeper and more permanent than any scar? 

He briefly contemplates shame.

“Annalise,” he says, not because he wants to be seen, not because he wants to feel better, not even because he thinks he's capable of feeling better, but because he can't stand a universe where Annalise hates herself like this. It's not fair. It's monstrous. He reaches blindly across the gap and prays. “Years ago, someone assaulted me, too.”

She looks up at him at last, and Sam feels his skin peel back under her gaze.

“It's...complicated,” he says. How else can he describe the Cage? “The person responsible is so far beyond prosecution, it's not even funny. But even if he wasn't, I'd still never be brave enough to do what you're doing. I still wouldn't say a thing, not even if I thought people would take it seriously. I couldn't. He made me feel like a criminal for what he did to me, and every day I wake up and punish myself for it, because it's better than letting someone else punish me instead. So please believe me when I tell you - there is nothing wrong with you. The fact that you're choosing to do this, refusing to be told to shut up, refusing to give in even when it feels like a lost cause - a lot of people couldn't do it. No matter what, in my book, that makes you a hero.”

Annalise ducks her head again to hide her face. But as she does so, she also reaches out to Sam. Her hand is small and fragile and cold. He wraps his fingers around it and squeezes gently to lend her some of his warmth. He says, I am here. Her trembling palm responds.

“I'm so sorry,” she croaks. “I'm so sorry that happened to you, Sam.”

He runs his thumb along the back of her hand and thinks - this is what angels never understand. This is the thing, the sinew of the human race, that makes it worth protecting. The ugly meat. It's flawed and broken and painful and everything Lucifer hates and it's why Sam said no, will always say no, gets out of bed every day and says no to the monsters of the world and will never ever regret that choice. It's Dean in the graveyard, bleeding and helpless, saying, “I'm not leaving you.” Over and over again: I'm not leaving you alone. It's someone reaching out to you, someone crying for you. Saying, you are not alone in this agony. You never will be.

Sam clears his throat around a sudden knot.

“We don't fight monsters to keep ourselves safe,” he says. “If we wanted to be safe, we'd run away. We fight monsters because someone has to. So thank you, Annalise.” He grips her hand tight. “Thank you for fighting the monsters.”

Annalise squeezes his hand back. They brace themselves against each other until there is nearly no distinction to their arms. Sam feels the broken pieces of himself strike up against the awful shards of Annalise, and for once the edges don't hurt. They slot together and become something that is almost whole.

Sam thinks of dark motel rooms. He thinks of times he listened to his brother on a far off island of a bed, shaking himself out of nightmares that will never be described out loud. He thinks of hospital rooms where he has lain, observing and being observed, exposed and silent and raw and afraid. 

He thinks of the Cage. 

He is always, he discovers, thinking of the Cage - in one way or another. Of begging Lucifer for a different kind of pain. Of guilt and penance and despair. He is always thinking, never speaking. Thinking: he reached out to Lucifer, once upon a time. 

Sam thinks now of times he grasped desperately in the dark. He thinks, quite suddenly, of a fresco on the ceiling of a church. A hand reaches out for a hand. The gesture never completes. Something vital fails and the whole thing collapses like a house of cards. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. Sam thinks of a silent fear. He thinks of a movement never made. He thinks of all of this, and more. Still more. He thinks of all that goes unspoken.

But here they are. Annalise is holding his hand. Like this, Sam has a kind of humble revelation: God may have never responded when Sam prayed to him in the Cage, but Sam reached for Annalise - and Annalise reached back.

What does Heaven have that can compare?

][

“So I just...think bad things while holding onto these?” Annalise asks, looking into the plastic grocery bag Dean has set down onto the bed beside her.

“That’s what Rowena says,” Dean tells her. 

“Amber purifies negative thoughts, apparently,” Sam adds. “She said you might have to go through a bunch of them before it’s done. Just put the spent ones in here.”

He holds up one of the empty warded boxes they’ve taken from the Men of Letters bunker and stashed in the car. Rowena hadn’t seemed to think the stones would retain any power after Annalise was done with them, but it’s better to be safe than sorry in their line of work.

Annalise hesitates over the bag, then reaches in and picks up a piece of amber. It shines golden, flecked with dark shadows and bubbles.

“Well,” she says. “Here goes.” She curls her fingers around it, tight. “This feels kind of stupid.”

“Still not the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to us,” Dean says.

Annalise smiles, a little falteringly, and then focuses on her closed fist. A moment or two passes and then - a sharp snapping sound fills the air. When she opens her hand, a crack has appeared in the stone, marring its otherwise smooth surface.

“One down,” she says, and drops it in the curse box with a clatter.

She picks up another.

The purification process takes a long time. They stay quiet through it all, watching her whittle the grocery bag full of rocks down to almost nothing, offering their silent support, their steadfast presence. One by one the rocks fall into the curse box, broken and abandoned.

Sam’s not sure when, but at some point Annalise starts to cry. Her shoulders shake. Then her whole body. Soon she’s openly sobbing, fat, ugly tears rolling down her face as she curls in on herself, hand extended, fingers clenched around yet another broken rock.

But eventually the tears dry out. They always do, no matter the grief. Annalise’s eyes are red-rimmed, her skin washed of all color, save the bruise. Her hand is steady as she holds a large chunk of amber in her palm.

It doesn’t crack.

“I’m keeping this one,” Annalise says, holding it up to the light. “As a good luck charm.”

She smiles. Sam smiles with her.

][

“She’s alright now,” Sam tells Alex over the phone. “But I think she could use some friends.”

“There’s a spot for her at Jody’s whenever she needs it,” Alex says. “You tell her that. And speaking of, Jody wants me to tell you you’re not to leave town without coming by for a visit.”

“Of course not,” Sam says. “Maybe we’ll bring Annalise.”

It’s funny how easily he can picture her there among the girls, laughing at Claire’s jokes or leaning against Alex’s shoulder. It feels right.

Maybe everything will be okay, in its own way, no matter what happens next. With company, there is nothing that cannot be endured. It will be good, anyway, for Annalise to have company.

When Sam hangs up, Dean is coming out of the motel room, carting the curse box full of broken amber stones to the Impala.

“How’s she doing?” Sam asks, following after.

“Fine, I think,” Dean says, popping the trunk. “She’s sleeping it off.”

“You think she’d be up for dropping by Jody’s in a bit?” Sam asks.

“Maybe. We’ll see. This whole purification thing took a lot out of her.”

He slides the curse box into the back, past a box filled with more amber stones. They’re big and small, some solitary and some woven into jewelry - bracelets and necklaces and earrings. Dean must have driven to every pawn shop and new age store in the area to get all of these. It took him long enough. Sam reaches out to pick one up.

“I wouldn't do that,” Dean warns.

It's too late. Sam has already grabbed a rock the size of a golf ball. It sits innocently between his fingers for almost a full second. Then there's a cracking sound, and it breaks neatly in half.

“Yeah,” Dean says. “That happened to me, too.”

Sam stares down at the pieces. Somehow, he’s not surprised.

He wonders how much amber it would take, between the two of them, to siphon the shadow out of their heads and hearts. More than exists in the world, probably. And still it wouldn't be enough. They have spent too long trying to will it back into the dark. But the dark is its home, after all. That’s not an exorcism. It’s a postponement.

Maybe there's another path.

God is not watching them here. He turns His eyes away. But that's alright. They are watching each other. 

Speak and be heard.

Heaven covers its ears. Hell howls with violent laughter. But the world is filled with those who stand silently and listen. They are waiting for permission to speak themselves.

Looking up from the fragile shards of amber lying in his palm, Sam says, “Hey, Dean?”

And Dean says, “What's up?”

And Sam sucks in a decade's worth of silence and says, “There's something I want to tell you about the Cage.”

]

**Author's Note:**

> Further Warning: Sam and Dean investigate a case involving a young woman who was recently sexually assaulted and who will soon be confronting her abuser, her former boss, in court. The abuser briefly appears but nobody directly interacts with him. It's discussed that people believe that she is lying about what happened. She has a lot of guilt and shame associated with what happened to her. Some of what happens could probably be considered self-harm although not in the traditional sense (there's no direct self-mutilation or anything along those lines). Sam is simultaneously thinking about Lucifer and his time in the Cage, where he experienced something similar. Again, nothing explicit is described in either instance.
> 
> I hope that's clear enough! Please let me know if there's anything I should add. This story is pretty heavy emotionally speaking so I want to be careful about it.
> 
> If you read please please let me know what you thought!!!


End file.
